Amidst all this singing, dancing, and other shenanigans of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (tickets are on sale now at MVLCT’s website), I’ve been keeping up with a busy summer.

I’ve got a Nintendo Switch 2, one of my first console release date purchases. And even with only one game specific to the system (Mario Kart World), I’ve found myself cursing out the A.I. in some matches as I work at unlocking a number of characters and completing a number of races. The console itself spends most it’s time docked in my apartment at the moment, but that might change with some other games coming this fall.

I’ve also been working my way through the “Dungeon Crawler Carl” book series. The humor, especially in the first two books, is very crude at times, but the concept of humans forced to battle royale their way through a dungeon with puzzles that most likely spell doom to a number of players has been interesting for this fantasy and science-fiction loving nerd.

I devoured “This is How We Lose the Time War,” a Hugo award winning novel from 2020 during a lazy Sunday. I liked the interlinked nature of two people writing to one another from different time streams as they both meddle in events, but found the prose between the letters was always too flowery in its descriptions, like someone reaching for a thesaurus as they were writing. At just under 200 pages, though, it was a very quick read, and the love letters between the characters were achingly beautiful.

We’re also at roughly the halfway point of the year and my movie watching has kind of slowed down for obvious reasons (musical practices eat a lot out of the evening hours). Still, a couple recent watches have been exceptional. The first is the adaptation of “The Life of Chuck,” a Stephen King short story. Directed by Mike Flanagan (known for his Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House” and other King adaptation “Doctor Sleep”), the film’s narratively told from the end to the beginning. What I took from it, though, was an excitement of a life well lived and such energetic dancing that it was something to witness on film. For a film about the end of the universe, it leaves you more hopeful and excited about your own life and choices and people who encompass it. Highly recommend catching it in theaters or when it will inevitably come to Hulu this fall.

The other was a Netflix animated release with a weird title – “K Pop Demon Hunters.” I’m well versed in kaiju movies, have heard a few Korean pop music hits over the years, but as a music genre it’s not on my must listen to list. At least until this movie’s soundtrack hit, because there are at least three bangers from the film now on heavy rotation. The way Sony Animation seems to have a passion for the world they built around this is also pretty stellar. The animation, like their “Spider-Verse” films, shows flourishes of style, but here it’s the use of music accompanied with the visuals that has this on my radar for Academy Awards next fall. If there isn’t an original song nomination from that film on the short list, I will be flummoxed.